(Reuters) ROME - An Italian court is investigating 10 seed companies
for allegedly using maize containing genetic material in violation of Italian
law, a judicial official said. The court in Turin launched the probe late
on Tuesday after state seed agency Ense tested samples from seed
companies for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and found some
of them to be positive, the official, who asked not to be identified, said.
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Italy has zero tolerance towards GM seeds, even though the European
Union's Scientific Committee on Plants and other groups say the presence
of GM material in seeds is inevitable because of unintentional contamination
in the production process. The official did not identify the companies,
which are under investigation for alleged commercial fraud.

Newspapers said on Wednesday they included five Italian concerns and
five foreign multinationals, including Italian subsidiaries of U.S. groups
Monsanto and Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., a unit of chemical giant
DuPont Co. A spokesman for Monsanto's Lodi-based Italian subsidiary said
it had asked Ense to analyse its maize seeds from the United States and
Turkey after the agency found samples containing positive traces of GMOs.
Edoardo Ferri said Monsanto Agricoltura Italia SpA marketed only conventional
maize seeds in Italy, but that a minimal, accidental presence of GMOs was
inevitable.

"As far as we are concerned, absolute purity is impossible in the seed
industry," he told Reuters. "Absolute zero is impossible in agriculture."
Ferri said Monsanto had still not received formal notification of the investigation
from the judicial authorities on Wednesday.

Seeds containing more than 0.1 percent and up to one percent of genetic
material must be labelled, he said. Less than 0.1 percent is a "technical
zero", he added. Company spokesmen for Pioneer Hi-Bred Italia S.r.L. were
not available for comment.

Leonardo Vingiani, director of Assobiotech, which groups biotech companies
in Italy, also said the accidental presence of GMOs in seeds was inevitable.
He said he had still not received word on Wednesday from any CEOs among
Assobiotech's membership about the investigation.

Italian farm groups said they were concerned over risks that farmers
had sown maize and soy seeds contaminated with genetic material, and wanted
guarantees that their seeds were legal.

"We are very worried about this situation," said Confagricoltura, which
represents big agricultural producers. "We want clear guarantees for farmers
who have sowed some 1.4 million hectares (3.459 million acres) with maize
and soy in Italy," it said in a statement.

Traces of transgenes have been identified in three different organically
grown crops (two maize varieties and one soya variety) in the Navarre region
of the Basque Country, Spain.

Tests have been carried out by two independent laboratories commissioned
by the Navarre Organic Agriculture Council, which closely monitors such
crops to avoid any transgene pollution of the organic food chain. Further
tests on one of the maize crops revealed that the polluting agent derived
from the GM variety Bt176, commercialised as COMPA CB by the Swiss company
Syngenta and currently cultivated in the area.

The local farmers' union, EHNE, the local organic farmers' association,
Biolur, the local organic consumers' association, Landare, and a local
organic producer cooperative, Trigo Limpio jointly stressed the worrying
aspects of this case, particularly the lack of control and future difficulties
for non-transgene food production and consumption (whether conventional
or organic). They demand maintenance of the actual EU moratoria on authorisation
of new GMO crops and an end to the cultivation of Bt maize in the Spanish
State.

Several months ago actual research data of the official farm research
institution of Navarre (ITG-A) revealed that the yields of the maize variety
Bt176 are no higher and in fact often lower than equivalent non-GMO varieties.
Regarding these results, higher seed costs and the fact that transgenic
maize is now hard to market, the institute is advising farmers not to cultivate
the Bt176 maize (EHNE - Basque Family Farmer Association, Spain, 05/15/2002;
cited from GENET 05/15/2002).